Xexial looked out at the looming forest in front of him. The trees stood as imposing sentinels, custodians of a great many secrets that lay within. Secrets that only they were the true keepers of.
Xexial had spent a great deal of his very experienced life in proximity of the Shalis-Fey woods, and never once were they ever as dangerous as since he met Ashyn Rune. The last time he entered, he was looking for traces of the boy he thought he lost. Now he was doing it again.
“Why are we lingering?” the Maba-Heth groused.
Xexial ignored him, continuing to focus on the woods. He felt a slight tug at the sleeve of his tan robes. He looked down to see something he never thought he would see. An ally. An ally to a wizard. “You be having second thoughts?” Khyriaxx asked.
Xexial’s eyes drifted to the strange brass contraption affixed to the spriggan’s back. He didn’t know what in the hells it did, but Khyriaxx was adamant that it would help.
Xexial shook his head. “No,” the old wizard answered as he looked back up at the ancient wooded line of conifers.
“Then what be your quandary?” Khyriaxx asked.
“The moment we step into those woods, wizards will fully be at war with the Ferhym,” Xexial announced flatly.
“The Recreant’s letter already said we were at war,” Grind commented impatiently. “So what does it matter? We have a job to do.”
Xexial didn’t bother to look at the anxious wizard hunter. “Because, willingly or not, the moment we step foot through this line of trees, we will begin a retaliatory strike against the Wild Elves. Further, if they captured Ashyn, we will be heading into the heart of their civilization. We will be assaulting Feydras’ Anula.”
Grind scoffed, his frill turning a dull yellow in agitation. “My job is to kill the Recreant. I don’t care about anything else. Especially not some tribal tree-jumpers.”
Xexial winced at the comment. He still wasn’t certain what he was going to do when he finally found Ashyn. His heart and mind were in turmoil, and he knew that he would only be able to make that final wrenching decision when he stood before his apprentice himself.
“We are ready,” Khyriaxx encouraged.
“Long past it,” Grind added.
Xexial instead looked beyond the trees and into the belly of the woods. “Then we go,” he said with firm conviction. “May history be gentle upon us when they reflect how this war began.”
Xexial stepped into the Shalis-Fey.
~ ~ ~
Brodea smiled widely at the Elder of Vines as he and Genrus Eigron walked towards her. Only an hour before there was a commotion in the Water Pens, and she was getting ready to pay a visit to the Blood Wizard with the Voïre in tow, who had become so invaluable as of late.
On their way down the stairs they ran into Eigron, eager to see her.
“He’s ready,” was all the druid told her. It was all he needed to say, she understood. Releasing the services of the Voïre, Brodea now stood in the druid’s cove, a rare guest to the elusive servants of nature. And the two before her were giving her exactly what she desired.
In the senior druid’s hands, she saw the weapon that Eigron promised her, and following behind Eigron, tethered by a rope was what she longed for most of all, her weapon, Julietta.
The Elder of Vines closed the distance between them; Brodea could see a look of anger and disappointment written clearly across his aged features. “This is for our people,” Brodea assured him.
“So you say,” the elder remarked, unafraid of Brodea’s position.
Brodea raised an eyebrow, “You disagree with what the Spirits decree?”
The old Ferhym looked around between the trees and ferns of the druid’s cove, and finally glanced to the sky before settling back on her. “I’ve been a part of this land now for quite some time, my dear First Councilor. You now make the fourth First Councilor I have the honor of serving, and you are by far the most gifted and loveliest.”
Brodea beamed at the compliment.
“But you are also the most dangerous,” the elder added, wiping the smile off her face. She looked to Eigron who was looking at the ground, embarrassed. The Elder of Vines continued. “Both for the skewers and our own people.”
He walked. Brodea reluctantly accompanied him. “When you asked me to research the tome and the shard, I did so gladly, eagerly even, because I knew they were the weapons of unbalancers most foul,” he told her.
The First Councilor nodded in agreement. Part of her wanted to cut the old elf off, especially at the insult, but he was their oldest living Ferhym in Feydras’ Anula. That alone provided him a miniscule measure of leeway. She would stay her rebuttal, if only until the druid finished what he had to say.
“When we hit an impasse, and Branch Commander Jenhiro brought us this artifact, I again sought to please you because of your disappointment in our failure in deciphering the tome. We thought it would be easy to manipulate this item. The laws of Creation, unlike the tome and the shard, bind it. Also a vessel contains an unusually powerful connection to the earth itself. We, being nature’s primary caretakers, knew that the item would eventually unlock its secrets to us.
“I did this for you Lady Windsong, even at the expense of a very talented hunter. This hunter warned us vehemently about what he witnessed from both the creature who wielded the device, and this artifact itself. We turned our back on him and his warnings to delve into this device, to research how it can help you. We turned on our own hym to do it, and we did, for you.” He shook his head in sorrow. “Now, I am told Jenhiro has not been seen for some time. He was a hym in need, and I fear that in our negligence, we have lost him forever. We possibly sacrificed a good Ferhym because we believe in the council and the cause.”
Brodea nodded in silence. It was an honest survey, and one she made many times upon herself. She knew much of sacrifice. She assumed the Elder of Vines was done, that he said his piece so that she knew the extremes he went to for his belief in the cause. She was wrong. She watched as the Elder’s expression turned disgusted and angry.
“But your request of this woman to use to humiliate and torture the wizard,” he took a breath before continuing, “I find it quite simply abhorrent. You intentionally desire to inflict horrors upon her, and it is shameful. Though she not be Ferhym, she is part of this natural world.”
Brodea’s patience had run its course. How dare he call her shameful! “She is a skewer just like the wizard!” she spit. “The worst kind, in fact. She is dui Nuchada.”
The elder shook his head. “She is different, yes,” he agreed. “Her resistance to Creation magic, namely fire, is perplexing, absolutely. But never once has she demonstrated any of the other properties of the dui Nuchada!” Brodea saw his mouth form into a thin line of conviction. “I have seen ten of them in my lifetime, First Councilor. Ten! I tell you now this one is harmless. We should study it, learn from it, and learn how to balance the skewers by adopting her powers. You will kill a boon to us, First Councilor. A boon from the Spirits!”
Brodea glowered at him. “Are you suggesting we turn away from the edicts of our ancestors? Betray the Spirits and the sacred cause they have bestowed upon us, because this little ginger-haired tart has placed an enchantment upon you?” Her voice was cold and dispassionate. “I respect you, Elder of Vines. I respect all the druids.”
Brodea pointed to Eigron, “It is why I felt it important to bring one closer to the doings of the Council of Elm. Long have we gone without having a druid as a Councilor. Sixty winters at least. While Eigron is young, I feel he has proven some worth by his relaying to us recent events that have transpired with the wizards. Namely in identifying the Blood Wizard to us. As such, it is why I have held him in as a liaison for the last several weeks. Does that not show the measure of respect for what I believe you contribute to our society and the cause?”
Brodea was lying, but she didn’t give the elder a chance to call her out on it, instead she compounded it with truths. At least truths as she saw them. She pointed at the elder and the staff like object he held. “Not once have I questioned your methods to you. Not once, even when I asked for Julietta weeks past. You held her when the council needed her, and though I did not like it, I did not question your motives to you. That shows how important you are to the Ferhym. But this? You dare to challenge my methods against skewers most foul? Against the Blood Wizard? The only wizard we have ever captured. He can release to us the weapons necessary to destroy their menace to nature forever! You say you want to learn. How can that not be worth the sacrifice? I would gladly destroy a dozen evil skewers and their families, in the hopes that one could translate the tome. How is the potential to bring real balance for the first time in thousands of winters not worth one possible skewer?”
The Elder of Vines stared straight forward. His bushy eyebrows furrowed in intense thought. Only once did he risk glancing back at Julietta, before looking down at the artifact once more.
“She has been in the care of the Earthshorn for a decade. Though I would never say we showed affection towards her, we have watched her bloom from adolescence into adulthood, and never once has she posed a threat,” he told her quietly. “What is true balance, if we sacrifice who we are?”
“We can change this world for the better,” Brodea pressed.
“Would you sacrifice your daughter?”
Instantly she thought back winters before when she had Whísper kill a druid to protect their secrets. Brodea already did far worse for what she believed was necessary. Whísper knew all of it. Whísper’s recent lack of restraint made her a liability to the cause. “If it meant true balance, I would.” She wasn’t lying.
The elder sighed, and Brodea wasn’t sure if it was in resignation or disappointment. He handed over the artifact. Brodea took the smooth mahogany staff. She marveled at the egg-shaped stone that sat atop the long shaft, and the sharp point, so much like a spear, on the bottom.
“It is a totem. A powerful, mystical object that wards off enemies and gives the bearer strength and power.”
“How do we use this against the wizard?”
“‘We cannot.” The Elder’s eyes held a deep sadness as he uttered the words. “A totem is rare. We Ferhym have not used such devices since our separation from the other hym, long ago. It is not an art that is lost to us. Only one we have merely strayed away from. Totems are very specific to their wielder. Ferhym work together. Such an artifact would have little use to us, since we share almost everything communally.
“When a totem is crafted, it is built around the wielder. It enhances that which the wielder excels at. So to use the totem of another is not impossible, rather incredibly rare. We discovered that only a select few could wield this particular device. It only answers to the most bestial natured. Like the creature in the pens.”
Brodea looked down at his slumped form. “What does that mean for the Ferhym?”
He looked up at her with tired, sad eyes. “In order to use it, it has to find something within you that most elves simply do not possess.”
“And that is?” Brodea replied testily her patience waning.
“A monster,” he told her. Brodea looked at him in confusion, and he added sadly, “but I don’t think that will be a problem for you.”
The Elder of Vines walked away. Though his words were meant as both a warning and a barb to Brodea, she didn’t care. She held the totem up, enamored by its majesty. This weapon could take down the Blood Wizard. Now she would use it against all wizards. Brodea could become that monster.
When she looked at Eigron, he looked back at her sheepishly. She didn’t know what was going through the young druid’s mind, and frankly, now that she had what she wanted, she didn’t care. Brodea smiled, she had the weapon, and she had Julietta. She had control of the druids. And soon she would have control of the Blood Wizard as well.
Ashyn Rune was hers. And that meant the secrets of the tome would finally be, too. She planned all along not to wait for the Council of Elm. She would begin tonight, and tomorrow she would present to them a broken wizard and all the powers the Netherphage held.
That, or she would present them a corpse. Either way the council would be happy. And no one would question their First Councilor again.
~ ~ ~
Ashyn leaned against the bars, his eyes closed, replaying the diagrams repeatedly in his mind. On his back, he could feel the heat of Macky against him. Sitting only a few feet away, eyeing them both maliciously, he could sense Uriel.
“I can’t concentrate with you staring like that,” Ashyn said, opening his eyes and looking at Uriel.
“Ur’ a monster,” he said, spitting a wad of phlegm to his right. “Ana’ I ain’t takin’ my eyes from ye, until you prove Avrimae’s alive.” He looked at Macky, too. “Neither of ya.”
Ashyn shook his head. “No offense, Macky, but I can’t believe she chose him over you.”
Macky chuckled to the point where Ashyn knew it hurt him. “Tell me about it,” he said between coughs.
Uriel’s eyes went wide. “I’s a successful man. She knows a real man when she sees one.”
Macky angled himself for a rebuttal, but Ashyn touched his shoulder. “Not worth your time.”
“Yeah. Lissen ta the little boy. Tis what ye always’ did, Macky.”
“Yes, because standing up for myself was such a terrible thing to do,” Macky shot back.
“Ye challenged the Bishop!” Uriel returned.
“He was only human, Uriel. He made mistakes just like everyone else. I simply defended us against those mistakes.”
Uriel scoffed, “And how well did that work out fer ye? Twice ye received penance. Once fer another person. No one would hire ye full on, once your charity was paid off, and the bishop forbade any of the priests to marry ye to Avrimae. Lissenin’ ta the witch really worked out well fer ye!”
Ashyn soaked up everything Uriel was saying. It was the lost chapters of Macky’s life that he refused to talk about. The poor choices. Avrimae was forbidden to marry Macky because of a vengeful Bishop. Should she have consented to being intimate with Macky and then bearing a child out of wedlock in an Enclave town, the results would have been horrendous for the woman.
It was considered sacrilegious. They were shunned and given little station, often they were tattooed to indicate that they were marred. Regarded as little more than vagrants, treated as whores or prostitutes, chided and propositioned to become an exclusive sex slave for a pittance.
Ashyn knew it all too well. He studied the tattoo in the manuscripts he read within the Onyx Tower. It ran from elbow to shoulder, an interconnecting weave of two colors that looked much like a grasping thorns. The color red symbolized impurity and stood for blood, to show the woman bore another bloodline’s offspring; green marked the woman as a disease.
Ashyn knew that it was perceived that a woman giving herself to a man out of wedlock, was somehow a contagion and could be transmitted to others. Therefore, the impure woman was to keep that arm always exposed so all could see that she was tainted with sin. Should she attempt to hide it, then the punishment was often a public execution.
This was what had awaited Avrimae. This was what the bishop held over Macky, and ultimately guaranteed his friend’s surrender.
Ashyn opened his eyes and looked at Macky. “Is what he says true?”
Macky shook his weary head. “It doesn’t matter. I made my choices. That is in the past now.”
“You lost the woman you loved because of me?” Ashyn almost couldn’t believe it. It sounded horrible.
Macky looked Ashyn in the eyes. “No,” the thin man answered passionately. “I lost her because of a spiteful, bulbous old man who became drunk on his own power. I joined the Enclave to change that. I didn’t want anyone else to ever suffer what Avrimae and I suffered. I wanted her to be happy.”
Uriel chuckled. “Yes, all that fighting and the bishop still won in the end dinna he?” With a sneer, he added, “I won, too.”
Macky looked directly at Uriel. “You won, Uriel, because if I couldn’t be with Avrimae, I wanted her to be with the one person in this entire world that I trusted enough to do right by her. That would treat her as she is meant to be treated, and to give her what I could not.” Macky closed his eyes and leaned his head against the pole. “I never thought you’d turn into an asshole because of it.”
Uriel’s cocky grin was wiped from his face. “Ye wanted me ta be with Avrimae?”
Macky didn’t open his eyes, instead Ashyn saw a single tear pool up in the corner and cascade down his face. “You love her, almost as much as I do. You are a hard worker, and were my best friend. If she couldn’t be with me, of course I wanted her to be happy. I knew of no other who would treat her right.”
Uriel looked down at his bruised hands. Bruises caused from beating on Macky. “Why dinna ya ever say anythin’?”
“Because,” Macky sighed, “because, I thought if I said anything, you would think that her compassion for you was false. That she just wanted a family, a family the bishop would never let me give her.
“Avrimae loves you, Yer. I wanted it to be real for the two of you, not just for her, but for both of you.”
“So ye ne’er stopped bein’ me friend all this time?” Uriel said, tears now forming in his own eyes. “Even after all I dun?”
Macky opened his eyes and looked at Uriel. “Oh, I stopped being your friend when you became a bullying assbag. But you always treated Avrimae like a treasure, and I respected that. And no matter how big a piece of shite you became to me, no, Uriel, I never stopped caring about your well-being.”
Uriel continued to stare at his hands. “I am a piece o’ shite ain’t I?”
Macky took a deep breath and nodded, “Yes, you are. But you are also a good husband, and a loving father, and don’t you forget that.”
Ashyn could only watch the interaction between the two in silence. So many questions ran through his mind. He stared at Macky, realizing everything he sacrificed for his friends and his love. This man knew nothing of greed.
“No matter what anyone ever says, Macky,” Ashyn whispered to him, “You are a good man. Don’t ever forget that.”
“Aye,” Uriel echoed, hearing Ashyn’s words. “He really is, ain’t he?”
~ ~ ~
Brodea confidently walked down the well-worn walkways that led to the community district. Eigron fell in step behind her dragging Julietta on a leash like a disobedient animal.
Brodea’s head was held high, her expression smug, as her raven hair billowed behind her. She had everything she needed, everything she wanted. She was anything but the humble creature that all Ferhym were supposed to be.
Jenhiro watched it all from a distance, analyzing how badly their situation was deteriorating. Transferring Uriel to the Water Pens had cost them Julietta, as he feared something like this may. If there were no Julietta, there would be no Ashyn. If there was no Ashyn, well, then they were stuck up a tall tree with no branches.
He warned Relm that this very thing might happen. It was why he wanted to push to move sooner. Now the worst was happening. Brodea was taking control, again.
The Hunter followed them, discreetly at a distance, until he came to the sector of housing that contained all of the Councilors. Warning whistles went off in his head. As of this moment, he knew he was entering the enemy’s territory. This was Brodea’s court.
Jenhiro slowed down. Unless he was directly invited into the Councilors’ homesteads, even as honored as he was, he was not allowed in that sector. It was still early afternoon, and the sun was bright and full above their heads. There would be little hiding for him here. It didn’t help that all the Councilors now on the Council of Elm were once previous hunters themselves. Every one of them had senses honed to detect someone slinking around in their domain. It was ingrained in them for centuries. Many, longer than Jenhiro had even been alive. He was looking at the entrance to the most elite of his people.
He navigated around the councilor sector and scanned every exit he came across. He saw no signs of the First Councilor, or Eigron, or even Julietta continuing through it.
Jenhiro’s heart dropped into his stomach. The druid at the Water Pens was correct. Brodea was protecting Eigron the best way she knew how, by keeping him in her home. It was easy to see why the druid thought that Brodea was intimate with Eigron. Had Jenhiro not overheard their conversation, or even seen Brodea actively protecting the young Ferhym, he may have thought the same. Instead, Brodea had fortified Eigron in a wall of security. He was in a home surrounded by veteran killers. And if Eigron was there, that meant the Gaur’s totem was there. Worse, that meant Julietta would be kept there.
Now they had a real problem. If they were going to save Ashyn and company, they were going to have to either break into Brodea’s home or raid the Council of Elm. Either option meant entering into the realm of the Ferhym’s most trained and lethal hunters to do it.
And there would be no more planning. It had to be done tonight or not at all.